No comprendo

One of the joys of this experience for me has been trying to 'learn the lingo'.  At school I did not consider myself good at languages, in fact French lessons gave me a migraine! But as I grew older, and possibly a little wiser, and began to travel more widely, I relished the opportunity to immerse myself in the 'cultural differences'. And understanding, or more importantly communicating,  is an essential part of that experience. I do like a chat!

Each to their own, but not for me the kind of travel where you simply try and recreate England in the sun.  We are loving Rincon because it is genuinely a Spanish working community and they have made us more than welcome, perhaps Brits are still a bit of a novelty here. We have embraced the Spanish timetable. Everything gets up late including the sun and closes again from 2 til 5.  Lunch is about 3pm and dinner at 9.00.  If you go out before then the bars are deserted. The typical 'manana' attitude still exists so we don't expect to get anything done in a hurry.

The satellite TV doesn't work on any English stations but it's rather refreshing not to be bombarded with depressing BBC news every hour.  We mainly tune into Spanish radio stations to be surrounded by the language, although I admit they play nearly all British & American music, and some very strange and ancient choices at that  ..... when did you last hear Gilbert O'Sullivan??

So we signed up to Spanish lessons at a school just across the road and our teacher, the lovely Laura has become friend and guide. We do our homework and have a go! Our still limited grasp of the language has definitely opened doors. I think they are so surprised that we know any words at all that they respond to our efforts by being extremely keen to advise and encourage us.

Natascha & Jorge, new friends in the beach cafe

We have genuinely found people here exceptionally helpful.   One waitress Marta was even moved to meet us for coffee and exchange English / Spanish conversation, which was great fun ( and it's always useful to be friendly with the bar staff).

Emilio''s bar

So you may see us moving rather slowly down Topsham high street, Spanish speed...... hasta luego.